much of that was due to reconstruction from hurricane sandy. other bright spots were health care, which added another 55,000 workers; restaurants and bars, which gained 38,000 more employees; and manufacturing, with 25,000 new positions. alan krueger is chairman of the president's council of economic advisors. >> i think we're seeing the job market continuing to heal. the economy's continuing to heal from the very deep damage that was caused by the financial crisis. >> brown: even so, there were also indications of continued sluggishness in december. the unemployment rate was 7.8%. that's up a tenth from the initial reading in november, which was revised upward today. and the number of unemployed rose 164,000 to 12.2 million. that number rises to nearly 23 million once part-time workers and those who've given up looking for work are added in. most economists expect modest growth but little overall improvement this year, as the pace of job growth remains too low to make much of a dent in the unemployment rate. we get an economic snapshot of diff